At the entrance to Forbach, a troop of learned dogs appeared: the two biggest harnessed to the costume-wagon; five or six others of different tails, noses, sizes and colours followed the baggage, each with its piece of bread in its mouth. Two grave instructors, one carrying a big drum, the other carrying nothing, led the band. Go, my friends, go round the world as I have done, in order to learn to know the nations. You have your place in the world just as much as I; you are quite as good as the dogs of my kind. Give a paw to Diane, to Mirza, to Pax, with your hat on your ear, your sword by your side, your tail sticking out like a trumpet between the skirts of your coat: dance for a bone, or for a kick, as we men do; but do not go making the mistake of jumping for the King! Reader, bear with these arabesques; the hand that traced them will never do you any other harm: it is withered. Remember, when you see them, that they are only the freakish scrolls drawn by a painter on the vault of his tomb. At the custom-house, an elderly junior clerk made a pretense at examining my calash. I had got a five-franc piece ready; he saw it in my hand, but dared not take it, because of his superiors, who were watching him. He took off his cap, on the pretext of searching me better, laid it on the seat in front of me and said, in an under-tone: "In my cap, please." Oh, what a great phrase! It comprises the history of the human race; how often have liberty, loyalty, friendship, devotion, love said: "In my cap, please!" I shall give that phrase to Béranger for the chorus of a song. I was struck, on entering Metz, by something which I had not noticed in 1821; the modern fortifications surround the Gothic fortifications: Guise and Vauban[37] are two names that go well together. Our years and our memories lie in regular and parallel strata at different depths of our life, deposited by the waves of time that pass over us in succession. It was from Metz, in 1792, that the column issued which was engaged under the walls of Thionville with our little corps of Emigrants. I am returning from my pilgrimage to the retreat of the banished Prince whom I served in his first exile. I then gave him a little of my blood; I have just been weeping with him: at my age, we have little left but tears. In 1821, M. de Tocqueville[38], my brother's brother-in-law, was Prefect of the Moselle. The trees, no thicker than laths, which M. de Tocqueville planted, in 1820, at the gates of Metz now give shade. There is a scale to measure our days by; but man is not like wine, he does not improve when reckoned by vintages. The ancients used to steep roses in their Falernian; when an amphora of a hundred-year-old consulate was uncorked, it perfumed the banquet. The clearest intelligence might be mingled with old years, and no one would be tempted to get tipsy with it.